


Life and Love and Photosynthesis

by EnduringParadox



Category: Pilgrimage (2017)
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Attempt at Humor, Awkward Conversations, Awkward Flirting, Awkwardness, David is self-conscious and in love and also a teenager so he's an emotional and overdramatic mess, Dorks in Love, Fluff, Fluff and Humor, Humor, M/M, Teenage Dorks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-23
Updated: 2021-01-23
Packaged: 2021-03-15 13:01:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,831
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28938906
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EnduringParadox/pseuds/EnduringParadox
Summary: High School AU. David just desperately wants to ask out his crush, Diarmuid.
Relationships: Brother Diarmuid/The Mute
Comments: 12
Kudos: 33





	Life and Love and Photosynthesis

**Author's Note:**

> Another AU off my list! Hope you enjoy Teenage Dorks!Diarmute. I tried my best to make David's POV sound young but thoughtful but also obviously kind of a rough teenage boy who is shy about expressing himself. Did it work? At the very least he was fun to write.

David wasn’t, like, super creepy about it or anything. He didn’t post weird notes in Diarmuid’s locker, or keep tabs on his entire class schedule, or fish through the trash for chewed up pieces of gum to stick into a scrapbook. None of that fucking weird red-flag shit—he wasn’t _obsessed_.

But he was in love. He had to be. It was like—seeing Diarmuid made his day _better_ , and, like, he just wanted to see him smile and hear him laugh and take him out to the ice cream parlor and see what his favorite flavor was.

And, maybe—if it was okay with Diarmuid—David could hold his hand when they walked around town, and even kiss him sometimes.

Except that would never happen because Diarmuid barely knew he existed.

Well, he did, like, know _of_ David. They had English class together. Same row, Diarmuid at the front and David hiding in the very back because he was broad enough and tall enough to block everyone’s view and was always scared of being called on besides. They saw each other every day, and Diarmuid always smiled and greeted him which was _great_ but he smiled at literally everyone—he was just a really nice person.

And super smart, too, and really, really pretty. Not like movie star pretty, but more like in the way artists from way back painted and sculpted their muses. Like, classic and timeless. Anyone could look at Diarmuid and be inspired.

David wished he was good enough to paint his portrait. Preserve his face for generations to come.

He’d said something along those lines one night at dinner. Mumbled it while pushing around a plate of green beans and mashed potatoes.

“You going to tell him that or are you going to keep being a little bitch about it?” his brother had asked.

“Don’t call your brother names,” their dad warned. “And watch your language. There’s a lady present.”

Their mom said, idly, “Yes, watch your language. It upsets your father because he thinks it upsets me. David, dear, are you talking about Ciaran’s boy?”

David had grumbled, “Yeah.”

“He’s a very sweet young man. When you invite him out on a date take some money from my wallet. Enough to treat yourselves to lunch.”

“I can’t just _ask him on a date!_ ” David said, horrified.

“Why can’t you?”

God, his mom just didn’t get it, **_ugh_**. “Because—because he probably doesn’t, you know, like me that way. He’ll probably say no.” And he’d say it in a really sweet, apologetic way, like he was really sorry, and he’d mean it. Diarmuid was nothing if not sincere. But it’d still be a no, and it’d still break David’s heart into millions of little pieces like so many shards of broken glass.

His older brother was always full of advice that David hadn’t asked for. “Come on, David, don’t you know that saying—it’s better to have loved and lost than not loved at all?”

Like, what the fuck, quoting Tennyson at him. “It’s, ‘tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all, _douchebag_ , and it doesn’t apply here because I don’t _have_ Diarmuid so I can’t _lose_ him.”

“Well, you won’t ever lose him if you never ask him out.”

Which made enough sense to piss David right the fuck off. “Shut up! No one asked you! Go back to eating glue, asshole!”

“Least I’ve been out on a date,” his brother had said with a scoff.

David snapped, “Your hand doesn’t count.”

“Boys, please,” their dad had begged, “Be _kinder_ to each other. And none of that sort of talk at the dinner table.”

Their mom chimed in, “That’s right. Eat your beans and keep it clean,” and then began laughing to herself like it was really funny. Maybe it was, because after a moment it got their dad laughing, too. He always did that—smiled when their mom smiled, laughed when she did. Just being with her seemed to put him in a good mood.

Yeah, that was love, too.

David wanted to know everything about Diarmuid, wanted to talk to him and hold his hand, wanted to hear him laugh and laugh with him.

* * *

Something wonderful happened on Monday. Diarmuid forgot his book for English class. He walked all the way to the back of the class—all the way to the back, to David specifically, hadn’t even looked at anyone else—and stood there shyly.

“Um, David?” Diarmuid stared down at him, worrying his lower lip between his teeth. I’m really sorry to bother you, but I left my book at home today. Would it be okay if we shared?”

Holy shit. David stammered, “Yeah—yeah, no problem. No big deal. Sure.”

There was nothing else in the world like Diarmuid’s smile. Bright, beautiful, kind, and warm.

David could barely contain a smile of his own as Diarmuid moved a desk to sit next to him. They were close—David had to slide the book to the middle of their shared desks and their knees touched when Diarmuid scooted a little closer to read the pages. He smelled _really_ good.

Jesus, that was creepy. He had to get a hold of himself. Fuck.

David schooled his expression to one of absolute, cool neutrality. This was no big deal. Just a guy asking him for a favor. Prettiest guy in the school, maybe even the _world_ , but, whatever. This was English class. David could keep it _professional_.

But he was so focused on keeping focused that he missed what they were supposed to be doing. He was jarred out of his thoughts as the teacher said, “David, continue the reading, please.”

Shit, what’d they read last? What chapter were they one? He hated reading out loud in the first place and now he’d have to ask where they were in the book like some sort of stupid idiot—

Diarmuid must’ve noticed his panic beause he gave David’s leg a little shake with one hand—holy **_fuck_** —and gently but pointedly tapped the open book with his finger. David glanced down. Ah, the passage.

David cleared his throat and began to read. It wasn’t his best. He was always nervous when reading in front of a group and he tried his best to prepare beforehand—counting attendance and the number of paragraphs to find where his own section would be in order to read and reread before he was called on. That way he wouldn’t trip over any words or pronunciations and sound like a complete moron.

He hadn’t had the chance to this time, though. He stammered and stopped here and there, acutely aware of Diarmuid’s eyes on him and they sat shoulder to shoulder. When he finished his face was burning. Everyone could probably see him blushing red, and it was embarrassing to be embarrassed, God—

Diarmuid leaned close to him and murmured, very, very quietly, “You have such a nice voice, David.”

And then his face was red for a completely different reason.

* * *

David rode the high from that compliment for days. A nice voice. Diarmuid thought he had a _nice_ voice. He would have never thought that about himself in a million years, never. He just _was_ , and David usually felt that he was too much. Too tall, too big, too awkward, too rough, too quiet.

Whereas Diarmuid was just—

Just enough of everything. Just wonderful.

If Diarmuid thought his voice was nice, maybe he’d like the rest of him? Not like—not like _that_ , but—if he didn’t mind David’s voice maybe they’d be able to talk for a bit.

A thought came to him then: the full-blown date. A day at the movies, sitting close in the theater, even closer than they had been in English class. The screen lit with fantastic images that thrilled and enthralled and Diarmuid alternatively turning to David and laughing clear and pretty at some joke or maybe gasping in shock at some frightening, tense part and grabbing David’s hand for comfort.

It could be any movie at all but it’d be _good_ and then afterwards they could finally go to that ice cream parlor and sit down and talk about what they’d watched because Diarmuid thought David’s voice was _nice_ and—

And he’d do it. He’d ask Diarmuid out on a date. He could say no, of course, there was always that chance but at the moment David felt like his chances were decent. Certainly higher than before.

So, a date.

Maybe Saturday. Movies, ice cream. Just a nice day out.

Yeah, that’d work.

He figured Wednesday was the best day to talk to Diarmuid. Middle of the week, not too late that that he might have plans already, not too early that something might come up. And, on Saturday, he’d drive to Diarmuid’s house and knock on the door and—maybe bring flowers? Or was that a second date thing? Wait, he couldn’t get too far ahead on himself. Movie first. Popcorn, candy, soda, the works.

David stopped short at the sight of Diarmuid at his locker.

He’d planned out nearly their entire date but he hadn’t thought about _how to ask him out_.

Fuck.

Diarmuid knelt on the ground, placing his textbooks and his notebook inside his backpack, as well as two pens in a pocket on the side. Then he seemed to notice David’s shadow looming over him because he paused, turned, and looked up.

His face broke into a wide smile. He quickly stood and slung his backpack across his shoulder. “David!” Diarmuid said, just as pretty as always, “It’s so nice to see you!”

Trying to be casual, David responded, “Oh, hey, Diarmuid. I didn’t expect to see you here this morning.”

Diarmuid bounced on the balls of his feet. “This is my locker,” he said, still smiling.

“Right.” Fuck. That was stupid. Why wouldn’t he expect Diarmuid to be at his own locker before class? “Yeah, I mean. Well, I—I mean that _I_ didn’t think I’d come to school today. So I didn’t know I’d see you. Here. This morning.”

With a puzzled, slightly concerned expression Diarmuid asked, “Were you not feeling well?”

“No, I was just—going to. Skip school? But I decided not to. Skip. And—“ Okay, there it was, he found it. “And I’m glad I didn’t because I wanted to talk to you.”

“You—you did?” Diarmuid’s big brown eyes went wide, his cheeks pink.

David rubbed the back of his neck and shifted from foot to foot. “Yeah! Yeah, I wanted to ask if you, you know, liked going to the movies.”

“I _love_ going to the movies.”

_Yes_. All right, this was going well. “Cool! What do you like to watch?”

Diarmuid fussed with his backpack strap. “Oh, um, really anything—I mean, anything is fun to watch if the company is good, right?” God, he had such a pretty smile. “But, um, I like comedies and adventure stuff. Like Indiana Jones? I really have to be in the mood for something serious, or scary—but I wouldn’t say no to those either!”

“Yeah, I get that. Like, sometimes something can be really good but if it’s sad or something it can ruin your whole day, so you got to be ready for it beforehand.”

Diarmuid laughed. “Right! That’s exactly what I mean, David!”

Hell yes, he’d made Diarmuid laugh. David wasn’t exactly sure what he’d said that had been so funny, but pride welled up in his chest all the same. Diarmuid smiling and laughing was the prettiest thing in the world and it was David who’d gotten him giggling.

The bell rang. The shrill sound coupled with the sudden rush of students pouring through the hallway startled them both.

David said, “Okay, so, yeah. Great—it was really great to talk to you. I’ll see you in English class?”

He’d thought their conversation had gone well, but Diarmid’s smile faded slightly. “Oh! Um, right. Okay, David. I’ll see you later.”

As David turned on his heel and began the walk to calculus he went over everything he and Diarmuid had said to one another. Diarmuid had been happy to see him. They’d both established that they liked to go to the movies. David had made him laugh, and then—

Oh, Jesus _fucking_ Christ.

David stopped right in the middle of the hallway. Someone walking behind him slammed into his back and bounced off, muttering under their breath.

Not that David noticed, because he was too busy realizing that he’d fucking forgotten to ask Diarmuid out.

_FUCK_.

It wasn’t a long walk to calculus. Down the hall, up the stairs to the second floor, then to room 205. One foot in front of the other, step by heavy step, David trudged to the classroom.

As he walked into the room someone greeted him with a casual, “Hey, man.”

David replied, “Hey,” and walked straight to the window and threw his books out of them.

“You alright, David?”

David said, “I am the absolute _worst_.”

“That’s just like, subjective, though.”

Perhaps, but objectively—objectively? Objectively he’d outright forgotten to ask Diarmuid out on a date and it’d be so fucking awkward to go back and talk to him again and try and act casual and be like, “Right, so, actually, I wanted to know if you were free on Saturday?” and so fuck all of this shit, he didn’t feel like being at school today after all.

As he climbed out the window someone else asked, “You coming to practice after school today?”

“ _Maybe_ ,” David called, and he dropped down into the bushes.

He stayed there for a little while, willing himself to turn into a plant. That’d be so much easier than being in love. Just—photosynthesizing sunlight into food-energy, working on getting green with those chloroplasts, and having cell walls.

Would suck if he got like, a beetle infestation or something. Plants didn’t really have any way to defend themselves. Too much water, too much sun, not enough water, not enough sun. Bugs everywhere. Sometimes people sprayed shit on you to keep the bugs away.

Sometimes they _ate_ you.

Man, it was just like Buddha had said. All life was suffering. Either you spent your entire existence in the dirt only to end up in someone’s salad or you were in love with the nicest, funniest, most beautiful guy in the entire world and he was so far out of your league it was just fucking pathetic.

David wanted to be a salad so bad. At least then someone would put him out of his misery.

* * *

He did end up going to practice. Exercising cleared his head. Got him focused on what he was doing in the moment instead of just getting lost in his thoughts. And most of his thoughts these days centered around Diarmuid’s smile. This day had been something of an anomaly, however. He’d spent the hours after escaping school and his humiliation picking leaves out of his hair and thinking about what a fucking idiot he was. Conjuring up a reason to talk to Diarmuid in order to ask him out on a date and then fucking _forgetting_ to ask him on a date, _fuck_. And Diarmuid probably thought he was super weird now. Some weird guy just wandering up to him to ask about movies and then fucking off to calculus.

But maybe it’d been for the best. The longer David thought about it the less likely he thought Diarmuid might actually have said yes and the more likely he thought that maybe he was just reading into things.

A nice voice. Plenty of things were nice. Dogs were nice. Hot chocolate was nice. David’s voice was nice. Just a regular adjective, one that wouldn’t get you any points on an essay because it was really too vague to be descriptive. Like, David’s voice might’ve been _nice_ , but Diarmuid’s voice was like—hearing your favorite song on the radio after a long absence. It made you happy, it gave you comfort, and yeah, it was nice but it was so much _more_.

Why had David ever thought he had a chance with Diarmuid?

He was furious at himself, so he took it out on his teammates. School-endorsed violence. No punching or kicking or biting, of course, but if they weren’t fast enough they were eating dirt after being tackled to the ground with all the force of a bull going after a matador.

“You’re really bringing your a-game today, David,” his coach said amidst a chorus of pained groans and the sounds of joints popping back into place. “What’s got you so motivated?”

_The absolute agony of love_ , David thought. But he said, “Oh, you know,” and shrugged.

His coach clapped him on the shoulder. “Well, keep it up.”

But could he? David would go crazy at this rate. To be so close to Diarmuid and yet so far, watching with desperation and longing as he watched him take notes in his spiral-bound notebook covered in stickers, writing with pen—with _pen_ , he was so confident—his tongue sticking out a little as he jotted down all the important information because he was so adorable. At some point David would just die of pure adoration right there in English class.

His brother would write his epitaph. _Here lies David. Lived like a little bitch and then he died_.

David mused on the inherent unfairness of his life on the way to the locker rooms. Why was he such a goddamn dork? Just a big, lumbering, awkward loser. Why had fate decided to put him and Diarmuid in the same class? To torture him? David must’ve done something wrong in a past life.

Or, he thought, walking out of the showers with still damp hair and fresh t-shirt and shorts, perhaps God was just fucking with him. Like a kid on an anthill with a magnifying glass, watching with glee as he squirmed around.

“David!”

That voice—

He stopped dead in his tracks and turned to see Diarmuid waving and running toward him.

“H-hey,” David said. He put his hand up and gave a short, awkward wave back. Then he became acutely aware that his hair wasn’t even dry and it probably looked like he had a giant dead rat on his head and he was just wearing his comfy clothes so he also probably looked like a giant dork with a giant dead rat on his head and with his shorts Diarmuid could also see his knees, which he had never been embarrassed about before but now he _was_ , he totally was, and _fuck_ , why was God doing this to him—

Diarmuid said, “I didn’t see you in English class today! I was disappointed.”

What— _disappointed?_ “Sorry. I just didn’t really feel like sitting through class today, you know?”

“I get it. But, um,” Diarmuid looked up at him through his lashes, “I mean, I really wanted to see you and then you never showed up.”

David hung his head. Not only had he not asked Diarmuid out, he’d upset him when he’d just decided to leave. “I’m sorry,” he said again.

“That’s okay!” Diarmuid exclaimed. “I mean, I don’t always want to be in school, either. But I do like seeing you, so, um. If you’d like, maybe we could, um, go out sometime? Only if you want, you don’t have to, I just thought that it’d be nice—”

“No,” David said, “I mean, yes, I’d—I’d love to go out with you. I was going to ask you to the movies this morning but then the bell rang and I just. Uh, I just didn’t get around to it.”

Diarmuid’s eyes shone. “Really?”

“Yeah, I mean, I just—I really like you and I thought Saturday? If you were free? We could see a movie and then go get ice cream. If that was cool with you.”

“It is!” Diarmuid burst into a fit of giggles. “Oh, I’d love to, David! Um, here, give me your number? We could text and—hash out the details.”

They exchanged phones. When Diarmuid handed the phone back to him David, feeling a bit more bold, asked, “Could I send you a test text? Just to be sure everything’s working?”

“Oh, sure!”

As fast as he could type, David texted, _youre super pretty_ and sent it.

Only a few seconds passed before Diarmuid’s phone buzzed with a notification. Diarmuid smiled, read the text, and then his face turned pink as new rosebud. He bit his lip and giggled again. “You’re teasing me.”

“Maybe a little,” David admitted, smiling himself, “But it’s the truth. I’ve wanted to tell you that for a while.”

With another little laugh Diarmuid gave David a gentle shove. It was the lightest of touches but it might as well have bowled him right over. Diarmuid, being playful with him and _touching his shoulder_.

Diarmuid said, “I have to get going. I’ll talk to you later?”

“Yeah, I’ll text you.”

“Okay.”

“Yeah, okay. Cool.”

They stood there for a few moments. Diarmuid looked as though he wanted to say something else. He fiddled with his backpack and stared at the ground. Then, he dashed forward, stood on his tiptoes, and kissed David on the cheek.

David stood there, dumbfounded. Throughout the ages so many great discoveries had been made. Fire, the Rosetta Stone, the ruins of Pompeii. Well, that was _nothing_ , because now he knew what Diarmuid’s lips felt like on his skin. He pressed his fingers to his cheek and grinned.

Diarmuid’s face was bright red. He smiled shyly. “Okay, um. Bye, David!” And then he turned and ran in the direction of the parking lot, a little blushing figure with a backpack that jostled with every step. Eventually he stopped and turned to face David again to wave, and even at a distance he could see that Diarmuid was still red-faced and smiling.

He waved back, marveling at this turn on of events. Just a few hours ago he’d been ready to give up on love completely and find a way to be a plant. And now he was here, with Diarmuid’s phone number in his pocket and his kiss on his cheek and a date come the weekend.

As David walked home his head was filled with a flurry of thoughts. What movie to watch? He could leave it up to Diarmuid. What flavor of ice cream would Diarmuid choose? Maybe something fancy, and raspberry dark chocolate, or something refreshing, like mango. Would Diarmuid want to hold his hand? Probably—he’d already kissed David and—

And then David’s thoughts focused on the kiss, on Diarmuid’s lips, soft and warm, the memory of them on his cheek. They’d have a good time on Saturday, and maybe _David_ could kiss _Diarmuid_ , and then maybe they could kiss again, and again.

Yeah, that’d be nice.


End file.
